Hardcover | January 19, 2017

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The modern research university is a global institution with a rich history that stretches into an ivy-laden past, but for as much as we think we know about that past, most of the writings that have recorded it are scattered across many archives and, in many cases, have yet to be translated into English. With this book, Paul Reitter, Chad Wellmon, and Louis Menand bring a wealth of these important texts together, assembling a fascinating collection of primary sources—many translated into English for the first time—that outline what would become the university as we know it.

The editors focus on the development of American universities such as Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and the Universities of Chicago, California, and Michigan. Looking to Germany, they translate a number of seminal sources that formulate the shape and purpose of the university and place them next to hard-to-find English-language texts that took the German university as their inspiration, one that they creatively adapted, often against stiff resistance. Enriching these texts with short but insightful essays that contextualize their importance, the editors offer an accessible portrait of the early research university, one that provides invaluable insights not only into the historical development of higher learning but also its role in modern society.

About The Author

Paul Reitter is professor of Germanic languages and literature and director of the Humanities Institute at Ohio State University. He is the author of several books, including The Anti-Journalist, published by the University of Chicago Press. Chad Wellmon is associate professor in the department of Germanic languages and literatures at ...

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Table of Contents

General Introduction

Part 1 German Research Universities

1 Friedrich Gedike, Report to King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Germany 2 Johann David Michaelis, On the Importance of Protestant Universities in Germany 3 Friedrich Schiller, What Is Universal History and Why Study It? An Inaugural Academic Lecture 4 Friedrich Schleiermacher, Occasional Thoughts on German Universities in the German Sense 5 J. G. Fichte, A Plan, Deduced from First Principles, for an Institution of Higher Learning to Be Established in Berlin, Connected to and Subordinate to an Academy of Sciences 6 F. W. J. Schelling, Lectures on the Method of Academic Study 7 Wilhelm von Humboldt, On Germany’s Educational System

Part 2 Americans Abroad and Returning

8 George Ticknor and George Bancroft, Letters to Thomas Jefferson and Edward Everett 9 Richard Theodore Ely, American Colleges and German Universities 10 Henry Tappan, On German Universities 11 James M. Hart, German Universities: A Narrative of Personal Experience

Part 3 American Adaptations

12 The Morrill Act 13 Daniel Coit Gilman, The Utility of Universities 14 G. Stanley Hall, Opening Exercises 15 Andrew D. White, The Relations of the National and State Governments to Advanced Education 16 William Rainey Harper, The University and Democracy

Part 4 Undergraduate Education in the University

17 Charles William Eliot, The New Education 18 Noah Porter, Inaugural Address 19 Charles William Eliot, Liberty in Education 20 James McCosh, The New Departure in College Education, Being a Reply to President Eliot’s Defence of It 21 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Future of Our Educational Institutions

Part 5 Diversity and Inclusion: Female University Students

22 Diversity and Inclusion: Introduction 23 Helene Lange, Higher Schools for Girls and Their Mission: Companion Essay 24 J.B.S. and M.F.K., Women at the German Universities: Letters to the Editor of the Nation 25 Decree on the Admission of Women to Universities

“With this book, Menand, Reitter, and Wellmon provide a rich and complex historical context that helps us understand not only where modern universities came from but also the scope of their fundamental mission.”